Modern technologies for the manufacture of organic chemicals, fuels, lubricants, asphalts, solvents and other carbon-based products are based largely on using natural gas and petroleum as feedstocks. Attempts to substitute other hydrocarbonaceous natural resources such as shale oil, coal-derived liquids, or biomass into modern technology process sequences have proven to be economic failures, primarily because these hydrocarbonaceous resources are expensive to produce, compared to petroleum, and possess higher concentrations of heteroatoms (nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur) than petroleum, requiring additional processing such as catalytic hydroprocessing to remove these heteroatoms and render the processed material more like petroleum.
For example, kerogen oil is derived from kerogen, the solid hydrocarbon contained in oil shale rock. Oil shale is a hydrocarbon bearing rock that occurs in various places in the world (Kirk-Othmer Concise Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, Wiley-Interscience, 1985 p 811). Kerogen oil is a liquid product recovered from oil shale through a pyrolysis reaction using thermal retorts. The liquid product so produced is also referred to as raw shale oil or simply shale oil. Kerogen oil may be high in nitrogen content when recovered from Green River Formation oil shale (U.S.A.), high in oxygen content when recovered from Kukersite oil shale (Estonia) or may contain other combinations of heteroatoms.
In prior commercial attempts, raw Green River Formation shale oil was sent to a catalytic hydroprocessing unit where nitrogen, sulfur and metals were reduced or removed. The processed shale oil that has had its nitrogen, sulfur and metals content reduced or removed by the catalytic hydroprocessing was then fed to a petroleum refinery where it was refined into petroleum products. Because the final products competed in the marketplace with products made from petroleum, the market value of shale oil products was fixed by petroleum economics. In the prior art the cost for recovering raw shale oil, processing the raw shale oil by catalytic hydroprocessing and refining the processed oil for fuels exceeded the value of the finished product, thereby making production of commodity petroleum products from oil shale uneconomical. A similar situation exists for liquids derived from coal liquids, oil shales in other parts of the world, and biomass. In each case the cost to produce the raw oil and to subsequently remove the heteroatoms so that it is acceptable as a substitute petroleum exceeds the value of the finished product.
If, instead of destroying the heteroatom-containing compounds by catalytic hydroprocessing, the heteroatom compounds were extracted and used for their unique chemical values the economics of non-conventional hydrocarbonaceous natural resource production may be dramatically improved.